Kids

Synopsis

It’s 24 fast-paced, frenetic hours in the lives of a group of teenagers confronting life in the 90’s. As an artistic endeavour, it’s the breathtaking images of one of the world’s most renowned photographers set in motion to capture the beauty and tragedy of youth…

Our take

A defining film of 90s American independent cinema, Kids is full of eye-opening, unsentimental insights into the lives of New York teenagers. The first film credit for screenwriter Harmony Korine (just 19 years old), and much of its ensemble cast, including Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson.

Critics reviews

Revisiting Kids for the first time since its summer 1995 release, I felt the same profound unease mixed with queasy admiration for Clark’s graphic depictions of adolescent lust and predatory smooth talkers as I did during my initial viewing. My appreciation for Clark’s provocative project, however, only grew once I considered the ludicrously sanitized versions of teenage sexuality that have dominated big screens for the past two decades.

What I feel most, watching Kids in 2015, is that it is shallow. I mean this partly as praise. The shallowness is the key to the film’s ability to transport us into the world of its characters, as if participating in their refusal to think of consequences, to look beyond the here and now.

[The] bullhorn salesmanship may have been a disservice, for the debut film from then 53-year-old photographer-turned-filmmaker Larry Clark also happened to be a work of art… The plot mechanics, crude but efficient, are of rather less import than the veracity of the blunted, slurred, off-the-cuff dialogue, city locations, and the actors themselves, nonprofessionals all.